Caroline Watson is a Young Global Leader of the World Economic Forum with a background in transformative approaches to learning and development, offering bespoke leadership development, coaching and consulting, at a high level to government and business leaders in service to a greater mission. Caroline first came to global attention with the founding of Hua Dan, a China-based social enterprise that affected the lives of over 32,000 migrant women and children through participation in theatre as a tool to develop their soft skills and leadership capacity.

The most significant thing that marks Caroline out in the field of leadership development is her commitment to what she calls ‘higher order’ leadership. Her many years of empowering leaders across all areas and across the globe has taught her that profound change can only come about through encouraging individuals to ‘dig deep’ into the more spiritual dimensions of their leadership journey to bring about leadership that elevates both ourselves and others. She has observed that a willingness to radically explore that deeper side of themselves is what sets visionary leaders apart from the rest. Her inspirational and innovative techniques encourage and inspire that ‘higher order’ leadership to emerge and empower the visionary thinking – and doing - of our world’s current and future Leaders.

Caroline has delivered trainings, speeches and workshops on the stages at Davos, Harvard, Oxford and LSE, and consulted with clients such as L'Oréal, Orange, Société Générale, the Prime Minister's Office of the UAE, UNESCO, ILO, World Economic Forum, CEDEP, Citibank and Goldman Sachs. She has studied at Harvard, Oxford, Yale, INSEAD and Lancaster. Born in Hong Kong, Caroline speaks English, French, Spanish and Mandarin Chinese and has lived and worked across many countries in Asia, Europe, MENA and North America.

Caroline is a visionary thought-leader and keynote-speaker and is regularly asked to speak at high-profile conferences around the world. You can watch her TED talk here and read her Metanoia blog here For more information about her speaking topics and to hire her for an event, click here.

“Caroline is a visionary and trailblazer in thinking about innovation around the arts and social change. I do not know anyone who has catalyzed such thought leadership around the topic. Caroline is a transformative and inspiring changemaker in every way, and her commitment to her work comes through in her speaking style. Audiences are captivated by her passion in her presentations and spoken words. Caroline will not only mobilize audiences but truly energize.”

Christina Bain, Babson College, USA